I wonder whether you have the complete book. Verne's English translators were notorious and a disgrace; in France, he is regarded as a minor classic of the language.
NOnetheless, I agree that Master of the World is not one of Verne's best. The plot device of having the heroes - so to speak - captured by the villain was something he carried out earlier and a lot better in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, when the investigators are taken by Captain Nemo and taken in an astounding journey across the planet and as far as the ruins of ancient Atlantis. The invention is richer, the characters more interesting, and the villain - so to speak - much better motivated: Nemo is an Indian prince who found himself on the losing side in the Great Mutiny and decided to continue his war on the English by other means. In and of itself, I don't think it's a bad device: to the contrary, it strikes me as very expressive of Verne's fear of the unstoppable and threatening quality of technological progress. The bravest and best-meaning people can do nothing to halt Nemo or Robur on their path, and only unleashed nature (Robur) or sheer old age (Nemo is shown dying in his submarine in a later novel can halt their opponents. Indeed, a variant has the heroes - again, there are three - placing themselves physically under the control of the forces of unleashed technology, and eventually nearly losing their lives on the far side of the Moon (De la Terre a la Lune and Autour de la Lune): in order to travel to the Moon and back, two American and one French adventurers have themselves literally shot from the mouth of an immense cannon, but their calculations are a bit awry and by the end of the first novel it seems that they are stranded in space. Luckily, the Moon's gravity catches them, and after a memorable turn on the far side of the satellite, they manage to reach zero point and propel themselves in the direction of Earth. This strikes me, both emotionally and in terms of meaning, a very similar situation without the need of a Captain Nemo or Robur to express in human terms the unstoppable and threatening nature of technology.
NOnetheless, I agree that Master of the World is not one of Verne's best. The plot device of having the heroes - so to speak - captured by the villain was something he carried out earlier and a lot better in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, when the investigators are taken by Captain Nemo and taken in an astounding journey across the planet and as far as the ruins of ancient Atlantis. The invention is richer, the characters more interesting, and the villain - so to speak - much better motivated: Nemo is an Indian prince who found himself on the losing side in the Great Mutiny and decided to continue his war on the English by other means. In and of itself, I don't think it's a bad device: to the contrary, it strikes me as very expressive of Verne's fear of the unstoppable and threatening quality of technological progress. The bravest and best-meaning people can do nothing to halt Nemo or Robur on their path, and only unleashed nature (Robur) or sheer old age (Nemo is shown dying in his submarine in a later novel can halt their opponents. Indeed, a variant has the heroes - again, there are three - placing themselves physically under the control of the forces of unleashed technology, and eventually nearly losing their lives on the far side of the Moon (De la Terre a la Lune and Autour de la Lune): in order to travel to the Moon and back, two American and one French adventurers have themselves literally shot from the mouth of an immense cannon, but their calculations are a bit awry and by the end of the first novel it seems that they are stranded in space. Luckily, the Moon's gravity catches them, and after a memorable turn on the far side of the satellite, they manage to reach zero point and propel themselves in the direction of Earth. This strikes me, both emotionally and in terms of meaning, a very similar situation without the need of a Captain Nemo or Robur to express in human terms the unstoppable and threatening nature of technology.
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